We used to call them "failed states." These were nations that had basically collapsed as functional countries. Today, we call them "fragile" states.

I've sometimes called Mexico a failed state. Technically, it's not. It's not even a state that has collapsed, but there is ample cause for concern. Just 15 years ago, there really wasn't.

To me, that's interesting, because a lot of people like to put the blame on the United States. As president, Barack Obama argued that we needed gun control because of Mexican cartel violence. Today, a lot of other people are buying into that argument.

That's the central premise of this letter to the editor from Utah.

Southern border security goes both ways. There were more than 214,000 gun homicides in Mexico from 2010 to 2021. Recently, a Mexican mayor was assassinated by a cartel days after taking office. Over 400 Mexican police officers were killed in 2021.

Mexico has strict gun control laws with one gun store in the entire country, issuing approximately 50 permits per year, limited to the purchase of a single weapon. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that over 70% of the guns used by the cartels are sold in the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico.

Between 70% and 90% of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico have been traced to the U.S. by the ATF, mostly from Arizona and Texas. Guns sold in Houston and Tucson were the largest sources of weapons supplied to the cartels. Gun trafficking even has a catchy name…the “iron river.”

...

Congress didn’t address the weapons trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico. Congress didn’t address weapon purchases by straw buyers to be resold to the cartels. Congress didn’t address China being the primary source of chemicals needed for fentanyl production.

Of course, Congress didn't need to. That's because both weapon trafficking and straw purchases are illegal. What was Congress supposed to do, make them extra illegal?

That doesn't do anything.

Plus, you really can't quote the number of guns traced to US gun stores without also addressing how the ATF actually directed many of those stores to conduct straw buys knowing good and well those guns would end up in cartel hands. At least 2,000 guns went south as part of the Gunwalker scandal.

I seriously doubt the Biden administration would admit that some of those guns being traced were sent there as part of that fiasco.

But I also need to point out that before about 2010, Mexico wasn't nearly as it is now. Yet the gun laws both there and here were, for the most part, the same. If guns were the issue, then why was that the case?

The short answer is that it's not.

See, Mexico has always had a corruption problem. Bribes were a common way for law enforcement there to supplement their income, but back in the day, it was mostly via shaking down the occasional American for a few bucks and sending them on their way. When the cartels came in, they could offer a lot more money and then they basically took over large chunks of the country.

But if American guns are somehow responsible, then were did the cartels get the drugs from?

This idea that without American guns, criminals wouldn't have any access at all is downright laughable. There are a lot of sources for guns and with the money the cartels have, they'd get guns no matter what we did.

The truth is, though, that the cartels are a symptom of Mexico's failures, not the cause. If criminal gangs could take control over large swaths of a nation's territory, then that nation had a problem that was exploited, not created. There's a reason that doesn't happen in most countries. It's because they deal with this quick, fast, and in a hurry so they don't end up on the fragile states list.

Mexico didn't. That's on them.

Everything else is them trying to shift the blame.